Adam Safwat, a former deputy chief of DOJ's fraud section, has joined Foley Hoag as a partner in the white collar crime and government investigations practice, the firm announced. Safwat will be based in Washington, D.C., and will focus on Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigations, sanctions, political corruption and financial fraud, the firm said. Safwat most recently was a partner at Nelson Mullins.
The EU General Court on June 19 rejected Russian businessperson Igor Rotenberg's bid to be removed from the EU's Russian sanctions list. Rotenberg was sanctioned for holding leadership positions in Russian companies SGM, Gazprom Drilling and Mostotrest and for his association with his father, oligarch Arkady Rotenberg, and with President Vladimir Putin.
The Court of International Trade on June 18 issued an order regarding the bench trial, set for Oct. 21, in a customs case brought by importer Cozy Comfort Co. on its wearable blanket, the Comfy. To prepare for the trial, Judge Stephen Vaden set a pretrial conference for Sept. 19 and told the parties to conduct a "good faith attempt to settle this matter and avoid trial" (Cozy Comfort Co. v. U.S., CIT # 22-00173).
The Court of International Trade in a confidential June 18 decision sustained parts and remanded parts of the Commerce Department's second review of the antidumping duty order on passenger vehicle and light truck tires from China. The court gave the parties until June 25 to review the confidential information in the decision (YC Rubber Co. (North America) v. U.S., CIT # 19-00069).
Court of International Trade Judge Timothy Reif, during June 13 oral argument, expressed skepticism at Turkish exporter Erdemir's bid to stay in court under Section 1581(i) in its case challenging the International Trade Commission's decision not to hold a reconsideration proceeding regarding whether Turkish hot-rolled steel flat products injured the U.S. market (Eregli Demir ve Celik Fabrikalari v. U.S. International Trade Commission, CIT Consol. # 22-00349).
The Court of International Trade on June 20 said that the Commerce Department's amended antidumping duty finding, excluding Turkish exporter Colakoglu from the AD order on hot-rolled steel from Turkey, doesn't invalidate the International Trade Commission's five-year sunset review of the order.
International Trade Commission member Rhonda Schmidtlein became chairman of the ITC by operation of law, succeeding outgoing chair David Johnason, whose term expired on June 16, the commission announced. She was nominated to the ITC by President Barack Obama in 2013 and previously served as chairman from 2017 to 2018. Prior to joining the commission, Schmidtlein served as a consultant to the World Bank for two years and worked as the founding director of the Office of International Affairs created to implement the obligations of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.
The World Trade Organization's published agenda for the Dispute Settlement Body's June 24 meeting includes U.S. status reports on the implementation of DSB recommendations on: antidumping measures on certain hot-rolled steel products from Japan; antidumping and countervailing measures on large residential washers from South Korea; certain methodologies and their application to antidumping proceedings involving China; and Section 110(5) of the U.S. Copyright Act. Status reports also are expected from Indonesia on measures related to the import of horticultural products, animals and animal products and from the EU on measures affecting the approval and marketing of biotech products.
Importer Vecoplan on June 17 dismissed one of its customs cases at the Court of International Trade regarding the classification of its grinding machines (Vecoplan v. United States, CIT # 20-00106).
The U.S. Appeals Court for the D.C. Circuit scheduled oral argument for Sept. 16 at 9:30 a.m. on the two consolidated petitions for review challenging the constitutionality of the federal TikTok ban, said a clerk’s order June 17. TikTok and ByteDance challenge the ban on four constitutional grounds (see 2406070023). Their petition seeks a declaratory judgment that the ban violates the Constitution. It also seeks an order enjoining U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland from enforcing it (TikTok v. Merrick Garland, D.C. Cir. # 24-1113).